Catch bucks data-driven marketing trend

Heather McIlvaine

1st Sep 2017

Australia’s most profitable e-commerce company, Catch Group, has launched a series of television commercials to promote its daily deals site Catch.com.au in its first major above-the-line marketing effort to date.

The move comes on the heels of Catch Group’s rebranding of Catch of the Day to Catch.com.au and the launch of an online marketplace under the same name. Catch has also announced it will open its first bricks-and-mortar store by year end.

“We thought it was the right time to take Catch to the masses, where we hadn’t been before. Even though we’re Australia’s largest e-commerce site, we saw we didn’t resonate with a lot of the country. This was an opportunity to get in front of the mainstream,” Catch Group’s head of marketing, Ryan Gracie, told Internet Retailing.

Created by SO Productions, the creative involves four separate 15-second spots, which will air on Channel Nine in prime time, during Today Show, Nine News NOW and A Current Affair. There will also be activity on 9Go, 9Life & 9Gem.

A digital campaign will launch across 9NOW, YouTube, Facebook and programmatic video, and ads will run on radio and metro outdoor.

The core message in the ads is around Catch’s ‘Screamin’ Good Deals’, with each spot featuring actors in different locations asking the simple question, “where’d ya get that?”, triggering a “Caaaattttcccchhhh” screamfest.

“People are always asking the question ‘where’d ya get that’. It’s part of the Aussie vernacular,” said Gracie. “[We] want the reflex answer […] to become ‘Caaaaattttccchhh’.”

The 12-month campaign has cost Catch “in the millions of dollars,” according to Gracie. This is a sharp departure from the strategy of many e-commerce companies, such as Kogan and Temple & Webster, to focus almost exclusively on digital marketing that can be proven.

“I think this is where marketers in 2017 have gotten so hung up on measuring results. Just because you can’t measure the instantaneous results from TV – though we do see an uplift in traffic when [the ad] is on – doesn’t mean it doesn’t work,” he said.

Gracie said online companies are missing out on an opportunity to brand themselves for a mass audience by eschewing above-the-line marketing activities.

“Look at the biggest brands in the world and how they’ve done it. Apple doesn’t even have a Facebook page. They do big bold stuff on billboards and TV. This is how they build their brand,” he said.

“The pendulum has swung so far towards marketing to an ROI, it’s becoming purely a transaction. If we only exist as a transaction, we don’t exist as a brand.”

While Gracie admitted that investing millions into the campaign required a “leap of faith” from the Catch’s stakeholders, he is convinced it will pay off in the long run.

“There’s no doubt it costs a lot to be on billboards and the radio. But consumers also understand that means the business is the real deal. They feel they can trust their money with you. I think the difference is it gives you credibility,” he said.